The Business of Walking
by shallowness
Summary: They told Selina she'd never walk again. (Selina/Bruce). Post 4.22.


Author's Note: Post 4.22. I haven't seen season 5 yet, please don't spoil me. With apologies to medical science.

**The Business of Walking: shallowness**

Selina was brought back to Gotham to recover while she was still on the strongest possible pain medication. She told the medical staff who were still around, probably because Bruce bankrolled the hospital, that she was going to walk again. Only Bruce believed that she would.

"You'll climb drainpipes, bring down three men and more. I believe in you, Selina," he said, his fingers entwining with hers.

As they reduced her medication, the doctors had their scan results and doubts. The nurses and her therapist talked about small gains, about too much damage, about adjusting to a new reality. They were talking about her body.

So, Selina gritted her teeth and pushed herself, doing the exercises they gave her under their surveillance, and, when she could, alone in her bed. She wheedled and got extra time, but for most of it, all she heard was, "Be realistic."

Alfred's face was shadowed when he visited, but then he'd heard what Bruce hadn't. Selina didn't try to guess if Alfred thought she was talking about walking again out of bravado. She didn't look at him too much, and he did her the courtesy of not chivvying her, or worse, asking her how she felt. A few comments about her temper slipped out of him, but nothing more personal from her second most regular visitor. It was a weird avoidance of the reason she was in a hospital bed, but they all preferred not to talk about it.

Alfred brought herbal tea with him, which Selina drank as much because it meant she didn't have to talk as because she thought it might help. But she was willing to try anything, even if it tasted of leaves.

It was Selina's lead physical therapists, Yasemin, who started believing her. She had curls like Selina's, darker, but she talked about haircare a lot in their early sessions, trying a little too hard to build a bond between them. Selina saw right through it, but used it, acting friendly, getting Yasemin to give her new exercises, even though Yasemin didn't think they would help Selina regain control of her legs.

But Selina stuck to it. She always could play the long game if it was worth it. The first twitches she felt in her legs, after so long, made her cry, and then, before her cheeks dried, she tried again. She'd never tell, but she was afraid she'd imagined the sensation those first few minutes, because she wanted it so much. But the sensation returned, though it was even harder work.

This happened while Yasemin was away. It was a three-day weekend, and the on-duty therapist was just a kid, older than Selina in years, but not in life experience. Her job was just a job, not a calling for her, and she treated Selina like she was eight years old and a hopeless case. Selina used her tongue like a whip. Now that she was on the road, she didn't want any time wasters around. The nurses scolded her, and left her alone to the hospital food and her own company.

So, unnoticed, she followed her own regimen of exercises in her bed.

She hurt, but instead of crying, Selina smiled.

Yasemin returned on Tuesday looking rested.

"I heard you and Alice didn't get on," she said, aiming briskly for Selina's file.

"Hello to you too," Selina retorted. "Excuse me for not playing nice with the patronizing dumbass."

Yasemin didn't push the matter any further, which told Selina all she needed to know about what Yasemin thought of the other therapist. Selina grinned.

"I've got something to show you," Selina said. Yasemin looked up from the notes she'd been frowning at. "Watch."

Whatever Yasemin was expecting, it wasn't the Selina Kyle variation on the latest exercise Yasemin had taught her. It wasn't anything like parkeur, but it was controlled movement of her legs.

Yasemin's eyes were wide, as if she were a street kid who'd walked in on an abandoned feast. Selina couldn't help but smirk, although she was panting a little from the effort. But feeling strain bordering on pain again was wonderful.

"Now do you believe that I can walk again?" she asked.

"I don't use the word lightly," Yasemin said, "but that's the closest thing to a miracle I've seen in Gotham."

Selina remembered another miracle, or bits of it, pain and cats and a friend who had long gone, but she didn't open up to Yasemin about it.

"I take it that's a 'Yes, Selina, I believe you can walk again," she said instead.

Yasemin arranged for scans and tests and then came back to give Selina a massage. When she asked, "Can you feel that?" Selina nodded, and groaned at one point. Yasemin said that that was good, sympathy and awe in her voice. Her hands kept moving.

Selina had to do the whole show again for the doctors. She was wheeled around the hospital, but Ricardo the porter joked about her being able to walk herself soon and her eyes gleamed. He brought her back to her room to find a worried-looking Bruce.

"Hey, Mr Wayne, don't look like that. It's good news. Looks like your girl is getting better." Bruce's expression changed from worry to that rare happiness she'd sometimes seen. Bruce had been carrying more and more around with him, the longer she knew him. What that psycho creep Velazqua had done to her was just one more weight.

"Better? What does that mean?" he asked.

"'Observable, controlled movement in the leg.'" Selina quoted.

"That's wonderful news," he said and reached to clasp her hand.

"Yeah," Selina said and yawned. Bruce chuckled.

Selina looked at the bed she would have to be hoisted into, and thought about how the day was coming closer when she'd be able to transfer herself.

Suddenly, Selina had access to new therapies, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, electronic pulses. She heard a rumor about new equipment reaching the hospital and suspected Bruce had paid for it. She had to relearn to use her muscles and do different exercises. It hurt so much to do things that would have seemed like nothing to Selina before, but the pain was a good sign.

Sometimes Selina wasn't tired enough to fall into a deep sleep, but dreamed instead. Jeremiah Velasqua and his brutal gun were the stars of those nightmares.

But in her dreams, she could move like she used to.

She fell out of bed once. It hurt like she'd fallen three times the distance, so no matter that the staff chattered excitedly about field of movement once they'd checked her out, Selina asked for drugs.

It was just for the one night.

Tabitha and Barbara didn't visit, but sent odd messages. 'Odd' as in infrequent and 'odd' as in peculiar, always delivered by a different woman whom the nurses never liked. The news from the rest of Gotham was bad. Firefly seemed determined to light it up in flames like Ra's al Ghul had wanted. Penguin was demanding protection money for safe travel. Some nights, staff stayed at the hospital.

But Bruce visited regularly, and when he couldn't, there was Alfred. He asked matter-of-fact questions about what Selina had done that day and seemed pleased at her progress. Sometimes he brought in food, and even though Selina knew that he'd snuck vegetables into her meals, the hospital food was so bad, she'd eat it. He continued bringing her herbal tea in a silver flask and she kept on drinking it, just in case. It still tasted like leaves.

"You have a lot of grit," Alfred said once. She wasn't Bruce, he wasn't going to tell her he was proud of her, and she didn't want him to.

"Knock me down, I'll pick myself up," she replied. "Somehow."

Bruce was there the day she stood up – there were rails on either side of her and medical staff fluttering around, but Selina stood on her own feet. It didn't last long, just long enough for her to look into his eyes.

She wobbled and fell. She fell a lot, and she had to use a walking frame just to take a few steps. In her dreams she kicked and leapt, ran across Gotham's rooftops. Selina felt worse when she woke up from those dreams than the nightmares of Jeremiah.

But she had a goal, so used those memories, she drank the tea and she did the exercises that got every muscle working, aching. Being able to walk to the window was a big deal. She had a different view than she'd had seated in the bed or a chair. It was a better view of the smoke clouding the city's skyline.

Her distances improved and rest periods between walks became shorter. She was given sticks.

The day came when they talked about letting her be an outpatient.

"I can leave," she said flatly.

"Yeah, you need to come in for certain treatments, but everything else you can do at home. Don't you want to go home?" a nurse named Patty asked. She had a wedding band, and though she didn't talk about them, kids. Selina knew that Patty resented her for keeping her distance from her, but Selina remembered how Patty had acted when she'd first come to the hospital.

"Don't you mean, 'Is your home burned down?'" she quipped.

"Well, we assumed you'd be staying with your boyfriend and his butler." Patty replied.

After all, Bruce did have a butler, and while very little was said about it, everyone knew Bruce Wayne was the one paying for Selina's treatment. He was allowed to drop in whenever he liked. Not that visiting hours were that strict, when curfews and road blocks were the norm in Gotham. Other patients' visitors were more irregular and some people never had anyone call.

But it was slightly more complicated than the nurse thought. Selina got out a message to Tabitha and got one back, in quick order.

After that, she started talking about leaving.

When the arranged day came, Bruce was present, hovering in her room.

"You're walking out of here on your own two feet," he said. He was carrying a stick and Alfred had taken a wheelchair down to the car. "I always knew you could, but I'm still impressed."

Selina was checking everything in the bag – she'd accumulated gifts, toiletries and clothes all these months she'd been lying here.

"Are you sure you knew I could?" she asked, without turning to look at him.

"You were determined to, so, yes." Bruce answered softly.

Selina looked up from the bag, happy she'd got everything. It was time.

"Did you ever wonder why?" she asked, now looking at him.

"Why what?" he responded. There were a lot of ways to take her question, and he'd thought of most of them.

"Why I was so determined to get better, whatever the docs said." Selina explained, carefully getting off the bed she'd been sitting on, glad to have her back to it. This bed had been her prison for so long, where she slept, where she cried, where she hurt.

"I couldn't imagine you not being able to move," Bruce said with more bewilderment than caution, "and I didn't think you could either."

She shook her head.

"That's true, but that's not what drove me."

Selina noticed that Alfred had come back and was standing near the open door to this room.

Things had changed for her the night she got shot. Now she had a great big red scar on her abdomen to remind her of how close she'd come to death. But she hadn't known how much things had changed until she'd woken up from surgery and it was Alfred who was there, the one who had heard her ask in a high, needy voice that was painful to remember, "Bruce?"

Bruce hadn't heard because he hadn't been there. He'd chosen the city over her. He'd broken his promise to her, not because he was under some kind of military arrest, but because he had better things to do than be with her. All the other hours he'd come by visiting hadn't made up for that betrayal, and Selina knew that, admit it or not, he'd been trying to make up for the past.

Because he'd noticed that even though she could have, she'd never reached for his hand, had never been the one to initiate a kiss, and the smiles she'd plastered on her face for him had been fake, fake, fake.

His mistake had been thinking that it was what Jeremiah had done that she held against him.

"I pushed myself, got myself better for one reason, really," Selina said, "so that I could walk away from you on my own."

She couldn't fight yet, couldn't outrun a kitten – when she could, Velasqua had better watch out – but she could pick up her bag and walk past Bruce and his stricken face. She could walk out of the hospital room she'd got so familiar with and past Alfred and his impassive face. She could walk past nurses who'd argued with her, dosed her up, washed her and helped her do this. She'd said her goodbyes to them, and now she'd said her goodbye to Bruce too.


End file.
